Racism alleged in trash dispute

A debate that started simmering last month over whether New Orleans' two highest-paid trash vendors are complying with the terms of their contracts boiled over Monday into a racial clash as dozens of black ministers and civil rights activists alleged that the City Council has singled out the deals because they are held by minority-owned firms.

Supporters of Richard's Disposal and Metro Disposal, both New Orleans companies owned and run by African-Americans, told council members during a hearing in advance of Friday's vote on the city's 2008 budget that any attempt by the council to change terms of the agreements, which Mayor Ray Nagin signed last year, would amount to racism and could incite activists to abandon the city in the throes of the winter tourism season.

"What is out of compliance if these men are doing their job?" Spiver Gordon, national treasurer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked the council. "We don't need to come back here and dance around your cash registers. We're talking about economic boycott."

During a rally before the hearing on the steps of City Hall that drew about 100 supporters, including dozens of sanitation workers, SCLC regional Vice President the Rev. Byron Clay said the matter is not limited to the firms in question.

"For anyone to question the ethics and the honesty of either company is not only an assault to that company but to the entire community. They have done an excellent job of cleaning this city up," he said.  'Unlimited bulky waste'

Last month, city officials acknowledged that a provision of the contract that Richard's and Metro signed calls for collecting "unlimited bulky waste," including demolition material. The city, however, is not requiring the contractors to pick up construction debris generated at properties under renovation because of Hurricane Katrina.

Instead, Nagin's sanitation director, Veronica White, has said the city requires the vendors to collect only debris that conforms with limits laid out in an ordinance adopted five months after Nagin signed the deals. She also has said that the contract's inclusion of an option for emergency collection of storm debris implies that such waste is not covered by the regular terms.

The companies' owners, Alvin Richard and Jimmie Woods, reiterated Monday a point they have made throughout the debate: that in bidding on the contracts last summer, they assumed city officials were following industry norms when they called for "unlimited bulky waste" collection. That refers to debris created in the course of ordinary life and by minor construction projects, they said, not the mountains of waste generated by a flood. 

FEMA quits paying

Debris piles have been an increasing problem across town since Sept. 1, when FEMA quit paying the Army Corps of Engineers to collect curbside storm debris.

In rejecting the city's request to continue the work, agency officials said that City Hall could handle the job itself because of the "unlimited bulky waste" provision of its contracts. White said federal officials also noted that most debris being piled at curbsides now is the result of remodeling jobs and therefore not covered under federal reimbursement rules.

In the absence of any government entity picking up the slack, the tedious task of carting refuse to a landfill has fallen to homeowners. Several local trash haulers have said they charge $350 to cart away 30 cubic yards of debris, and residents who truck the waste themselves pay $4 to $5 per cubic yard, or $24.30 per ton, depending on the site.

Council members on Monday stressed that their questions on the matter were not attacks on Richard's and Metro, which they praised for making the city cleaner than ever, but attempts at understanding the contracts' requirements.

In one of the most heated exchanges, Councilwoman Stacy Head, who long has argued that the contracts never should have included bulky waste collection, pressed White on a key difference between the agreements and the city ordinance adopted in April.

"Would you agree that 25 pounds or less of construction debris ... is not unlimited? Do you think 25 pounds is unlimited?" Head asked, referring to a weight limit included in the ordinance but absent from the contracts.

"That is what a citizen can place out safely without obstructing the sidewalk and/or the curb," White replied. 

Trash bill doubles

Together, the city's contracts with Richard's and Metro cost taxpayers $24.6 million this year, roughly double what City Hall paid before the storm and more than twice what Jefferson Parish pays per household for similar service. To cover the more expensive price tag, the city did not boost residents' $12 monthly sanitation fee but dipped into its general operating fund.

White told the council Monday that because the number of households served by Richard's and Metro, which each cover roughly half the city excluding downtown neighborhoods, has increased since last year, she wanted to boost the contracts' price tags an additional 19 percent next year, to a combined $29.2 million.

However, Nagin's finance team rejected her request to pay $17.2 million to Richard's and $12 million to Metro, White said.

Despite that refusal, Nagin has proposed spending an additional $1.5 million in 2008 on a separate contract to cover the sort of debris cleanup that FEMA and the corps had provided at no cost to City Hall.

Citing the racial animosity that imbued the council chamber Monday, Councilman Arnie Fielkow suggested that all sides unite in demanding that the federal government resume the service. He pointed to an opinion issued Nov. 20 by City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields as a place to start.

In the six-page memo, Moses-Fields, whose signature appears on the city's contracts with Richard's and Metro, provides several reasons why, in her opinion, the deals do not require the vendors to collect construction waste, including that "the contracts contain nothing the suggest that they were intended to be a substitute for ongoing emergency and disaster-recovery services, such as storm debris removal."

Fielkow said city taxpayers should not pay for a new $1.5 million debris-removal contract if part of FEMA's reason for shutting down its operation was misguided. 

Reimbursement urged

"I am concerned by the disharmony that the issue has raised at a time when our city has to come together," Fielkow said. "I'm going to ask that everybody in this room sign a letter going immediately to the federal government that says that the disposal contracts do not include (construction debris collection), and therefore their excuse for not picking it up is off the table and therefore we need reimbursement."

The issue of bulky-waste collection has not been raised related to a third contractor, SDT Waste & Debris. That firm, owned by Sidney Torres, who is white, services downtown neighborhoods, including the French Quarter, where piles of construction materials have not become a problem largely because damage from the storm was far less severe.

White told the council that she also asked Nagin's finance team to increase by nearly $1 million, to $6.1 million, the cost of SDT's contract next year. The extra money, she said, would allow the company to implement components of its contract related to mechanical street sweeping and flushing that were not executed this year.

White said the mayor also rejected that request. Other items in White's proposed budget that were zeroed out by Nagin were $1.1 million to hire temporary employees to aid city sanitation efforts and $2.5 million to augment cleanup efforts after special events. 

Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or (504)¤826-3312. 